1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to a hybrid vehicle power transmission device and a hybrid vehicle, and more particularly to the reduction in size of a power transmission device.
2. Description of the Related Art
Hybrid vehicle power transmission devices, provided with a drive source, and a power distribution mechanism composed of a planetary gear device for distributing motive power of the drive source to a motor and an output shaft, are commonly known. The hybrid vehicle described in Japanese Patent Application Publication No. 2002-225578 (JP-A-2002-225578) is one example thereof. In the hybrid vehicle described in JP-A-2002-225578, a carrier of a power distribution mechanism (planetary gear mechanism) is coupled to the output shaft of a drive source, a sun gear is coupled to a motor (first motor generator), a ring gear is coupled to an output shaft (connecting drum), and drive force (drive torque) of the drive source input to the carrier is suitably distributed to the motor and the output shaft by the power distribution mechanism.
However, in the hybrid vehicle described in JP-A-2002-225578, a damper device for inhibiting torque fluctuations of the drive source is interposed in the power transmission path between the drive source and the power distribution mechanism (planetary gear mechanism). Since the damper device is directly coupled to the output shaft of the drive source, torque of the drive source is input directly to the damper device. Thus, since it becomes necessary to increase the torque capacity of the damper device, the size of the damper device increases. Thus, the problem of increasing size of the power transmission device arose accompanying increased size of the damper device in this manner.